Last September, art dealer turned restaurateur Gennaro Leone was invited to design a new daytime eatery just around the corner from his Hoxton restaurant Dalla.
“The idea was a home you could spend all day in,” Leone tells Broadsheet. “Ramzi [Abou Chalach, Cremer’s founder] wanted a space for a croissant, then a bit of lunch, then an afternoon aperitif in the garden. Everyone is rushing around in London, so naturally this type of experience has become quite rare.”
Cremer opened at the end of June in a corner building opposite Hoxton overground station that was a pub until 2000 and more recently a cafe. Leone and his fellow designer, the Sicilian art director Oscar Piccolo, have transformed it into a meandering space drenched in natural light with giant communal tables and small corners for thumbing through the old books that line built-in shelves that frame the room. This homely feeling is fitting given its location – it’s on the edge of the Museum of the Home.
“It was completely by chance that we wound up in a space that backed onto the Museum of the Home,” Abou Chalach, who’s also behind Faringdon hi-fi bar Space Talk, says. “We’ve now grown so close with them.”
“Our real work was understanding how people are going to live in the space,” Piccolo says. “We’re Italian, everything we do comes back to family.”
The cafe is filled with carefully selected curios: wicker baskets that hold the day’s baguettes, still-life oil paintings, wall-mounted ceramics, woven silks, embroidered price tags on jam jars. It’s a collection that will continue to grow. “Every piece here is like something you’ve collected on your travels to bring back home,” Abou Chalach says.
The bespoke wooden coffee counter by furniture-maker and joiner Byron Pritchard is a small altar to craftsmanship. Inspired by a 1960s bakery he spotted in Paris, Leone commissioned artist Moses Hamborg to paint two landscape works, sending the artist into the English countryside for two weeks to capture the agrarian scenes.
Each morning kouign-amann and danishes topped with British strawberries are laid out on the wooden joinery. Nearby shelves hold bottled fresh lemonades, preserves and packets of muesli.
The open kitchen that lines the long dining room is led by alumni of Primeur and Polentina, and they change menu with the seasons. Dishes might include sweetcorn with girolles, or spinach, walnut and sheep’s cheese dumplings. Cookies, cold brew, breads, jams, juices, chocolate olive oil cake and rice ice-cream studded with caramelised grains – a treat that’s become a heatwave staple – are all made in-house.
Cremer has arrived at the perfect time for this summer’s sweltering heat. Its courtyard blurs into the neighbouring gardens of the Museum of the Home thanks to some handy horticultural work.
“The museum has this incredible garden,” Leone says. “We wanted to recreate that feeling of summer in the south of France. Metal chairs, not too many colours, nothing that feels new, just somewhere romantic to spend time.”
Cremer
1 Geffrye Street, E2 8JH
Hours:
Mon to Fri 8am–6pm
Sat & Sun 9am–6pm
